Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher, Writer)
Confidence in a forecast rises with the amount of information that goes into it. But the accuracy of the forecast stays the same.
—Dean Williams (Australian Leadership Consultant)
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
—Pablo Neruda (Chilean Poet)
As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not. He raiseth his head like a tower on a hill, and the arrows of fortune drop at his feet. In the instant of danger, the courage of his heart here, and scorn to fly.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)
Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity. … Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue, … a conversation with God.
—Henri Nouwen (Dutch Catholic Priest)
The ideals and objectives of yesterday was still ideals of today, but they lost some of their luster and even, as one seemed to go towards them, they lost the shining beauty which had warmed the heart and vitalized the body. Evil triumphed often enough, but what was far worse was the coarsening and distortion of what seemed so right. Was human nature so essentially bad that it would take ages of training, through suffering and misfortune, before it could behave reasonably and raise man above the creature of lust and violence and deceit that he now was? And, meanwhile, was every effort to change radically in the present or the near future doomed to failure.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)
Despite some of the horrors and barbarisms of modern life which appall and grieve us, life in the twentieth century undeniably has—or has the potentiality of—such richness, joy and adventure as were unknown to our ancestors except in their dreams.
—Arthur Compton (American Physicist)
A human life is a story told by God.
—Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Author)
It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)